Hiraeth

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Hiraeth (Welsh pronunciation: [hɪraɨ̯θ, hiːrai̯θ]^[1]) is a Welsh word that has no direct English translation. The University of Wales, Lampeter, likens it to a homesickness tinged with grief and sadness over the lost or departed, especially in the context of Wales and Welsh culture.^[2] It is a mixture of longing, yearning, nostalgia, wistfulness or an earnest desire for the Wales of the past.^[3]

The Cornish and Breton equivalents are hireth^[4] and hiraezh. It is associated with the Amharic-Ethiopian concept of tizita, the German concept of Sehnsucht, the Galician-Portuguese saudade or the Romanian dor.^[5] A similar Scottish Gaelic term, cianalas, also refers to a type of longing or homesickness, often used in relation to the Outer Hebrides.

Derived from hir 'long' and -aeth (a nominal suffix creating an abstract noun from an adjective), the word is literally equivalent to English 'longing'. A less likely, but possible, etymology is hir 'long' + aeth 'pain, grief, sorrow, longing'. In the earliest citations in early Welsh poetry it implies 'grief or longing after the loss or death of someone'.^[6]

Nineteenth-century attempts to spread the English language through its exclusive use in schools at the expense of the

• Heimat
• Saudade
• Ḥuzn
• Solastalgia

• Williams, Robert (1865). Lexicon Cornu-Britannicum: A Dictionary of the Ancient Celtic Language of Cornwall, in which the Words are elucidated by Copious Examples from the Cornish Works now remaining; With Translations in English. London: Trubner & Co. p. 217

• Hiraeth Smith College: Kahn Liberal Arts Institute
• BBC Wales - Arts - Hiraeth